Abstract
In 1822, a devastating town fire sealed a large ceramic assemblage from a store in the town of Oulu in northern Finland. Excavations of the merchant’s stock recovered over a hundred kilograms of ceramics that was almost entirely composed of undecorated creamware, a ware and decorative type whose popularity had faded significantly by the 1820’s. The assemblage reveals the global complexities in the international ceramics trade in the early nineteenth century, provides insight into some of the mass-produced commodities reaching geographically peripheral markets, underscores distinctive European market influences, and illuminates marketing and social practices that shaped consumption in markets like Oulu.
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Acknowledgments
Thanks to George Miller, David Barker, and LuAnn Wurst for reviewing drafts of the paper and providing important suggestions. Timo Ylimaunu is a post-doctoral fellow funded by the Emil Aaltonen Foundation, and he is project leader of “Town, Border and Material Culture: Effects of Modernisation and Globalisation in the Northern Finnish towns since the 17th century,” a project funded by the Academy of Finland. Paul Mullins’ travel to Oulu was funded by a grant from the University of Oulu; the Indiana University Office of the Vice-President for International Affairs (OVPIA); and a Fulbright Scholar grant. Titta Kallio-Seppä is a doctoral student funded by the National Graduate school of Archaeology, funded by the Academy of Finland.
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Mullins, P.R., Ylimaunu, T., Brooks, A. et al. British Ceramics on the Northern European Periphery: Creamware Marketing in Nineteenth-Century Northern Finland. Int J Histor Archaeol 17, 632–650 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10761-013-0237-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10761-013-0237-y